38 weeks

Countdown to baby: 6 days



This little guy has the lucky privilege of actually having a nursery of his own. When Dallin was born we had one bedroom, when Adam was born we had two bedrooms, and now we have three bedrooms. We made the transition to shared rooms for the older boys a few months ago and now we have a nursery. Everything except for the crib was leftover from the older boys. We added a crib we found on Craigslist and a new gingham sheet and called it good. After we washed the newborn clothes we were surprised how few we had. Makes sense though, considering a lot of the clothes were handed down through two cousins then my own two boys. I guess I got rid of more things than I thought I did. So a few weeks ago I bought a few items of clothes and other newborn necessities. And I might find some time to squeeze in a decorative project for the nursery by the end of the week.

Lately I have been making a lot of freezer meals. I am not very creative anymore. I guess I have been feeling the nesting instinct, but it mainly has come out with this one question: What else can I freeze?

Are you interested at all?

Here is what we have in the freezer--all home made thank you:

• Whole wheat bread
• Chicken strips and breaded chicken patties for sandwiches
• Italian meatballs (for spaghetti and meatballs or meatball subs)
• Italian sausage spaghetti sauce
• Meatloaf cups (I used my own recipe, but followed these instructions)
• Chicken and Black Bean Taco Filling
• Macaroni and Cheese (I don't know how this freezes yet, but I was trying for something kid-friendly)
• Refried beans
• Taco meat for tacos or taco salad

I also plan on doing some mashed potatoes to go with our meatloaf cups, some pizza pockets with premade crust from Fresh and Easy, sloppy joe meat and jambalaya pasta. It's not too difficult if you just double dinner one night and put half of it in the freezer. But still, I might have gotten out of control.

Although I think it will be worth it next month.

Happy Fourth

This year we went down to Mark's office to watch fireworks. It was just the right amount of festivities for us. I wasn't really in the mood this year for braving a big crowd with children in tow, yet we still wanted to celebrate the holiday. His office is right off Tempe Town Lake and we had a decent view of the fireworks from the large windows of the executives. We brought along some good friends who we don't see too often anymore so that made it even more fun.

The kids were set up on the desk by the window and everyone else fit in where they could get a good view.

Air-conditioned fireworks. Perfect.

Also, you'll notice the boys are sporting some new capes. They got these from Grandma Smith and uncle and aunts who recently visited Magic Mountain. Could there be a more perfect gift for these boys? As Adam told his uncle Ryan, "Thank you for the Superman cape from the mountain!"

Hope you had a great holiday!

Catch Up!

Here are a few photos from the last weekend of June. We visited my grandparents who are spending their summer in Strawberry, AZ. The weather was perfect and we had nothing on our agenda for three days. Nice.

With Grams and Gramps Christensen by their RV

Enjoying some S'mores by the fire.

Trees with arms

Spending time in the forest

Adam was kind enough to spontaneously pose for me between a couple of trees.

Mark was there too. He did the majority of the picture-taking this time.

It was good to get away for a little while and enjoy some cooler weather.

A Child's Prayer

I have been relishing listening to my little boys pray. Here' s my best recollection of the most recent ones:

ADAM (insert tw0-year-old voice here):

"Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank for families. And thank for people. And thank for safe. And thank for Jesus. And thank for Jesus song. And thank for Heavenly Father song. And thank for twinkle song. And thank for teach me to walk in the light song. In the name of Jesus Christ. A. . . . NEM!" Sometimes he will also take a minute to look around the room while he is praying and add a thank you list of what he sees: "Thank for Dallin's bed. And thank for Adam's bed. And thank for window. And thank for fan," etc.

DALLIN:

"Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you for this day, and thank you for this beautiful world and all the beautiful things. Thank you that my mom is having another baby brother. And please bless the baby to be healthy and to do good at the hospital. And please bless my mommy to be good pregnant."

I know part of it is that Dallin is trying to please his mom by saying these nice things while I am listening, but it's still sweet.

This summer has been good to me

May and June have had the most beautiful weather I can remember in my entire life of living in Arizona. I can't complain--not even at eight months pregnant I can't complain. Seems like spring lasted from February 'til the end of June. This week may get to 110 degrees, but don't forget: we had spring this year. We spent lots of time outside enjoying the weather and picnicking in the front yard in the shade of our olive tree. This weather has been a pregnant lady's dream come true.


And even better things are set to happen in just three weeks from today. My friend Nikki helped me can some meat to have on hand for easy meals for after the little guy makes his appearance.





And last weekend we enjoyed two of my favorite things combined: chips and salsa and good friends. (Chips and salsa together make one thing. It's only fair.) We had a salsa party at our house the other week with old friends from Westwood High. It was kind of funny that six out of the seven people that brought salsa brought green salsa. No pics of the salsas, sorry.

Here we are gathered outside to watch the kids hit the pinata. We sure have grown. So many little kids!That pregnant one in the above picture is my good friend Kathryn. We have the same OB doctor and for a good few months we were scheduling our doctor visits at about the same time so we'd see each other in the office. I am kicking myself for not taking a picture of the two of us pregnant together. I thought I had more time, but Kathryn had her twins a little earlier than expected. So no, we will not be in the hospital together having our babies together. But once all three of our babies are old enough, we'll have to do a little photo shoot.

Sometimes it seems like everyone has boys. Then I get together with these friends and realize that's not the case. Good thing my friends are having girls because my boys will eventually need some high-quality ones to hang out with. Here's a shot of our girl-to-boy ratio at the party. Little girls outnumbering the little boys is not something I am use to seeing.




Another thing that made me smile: The other day I left the boys playing while I took a shower. When I came out of the restroom I saw my tennis shoes and a clean pair of socks right outside the door, just waiting to be put on. Dallin pulled the shoes out while I was in the shower, picked out some socks from my drawer, and laid them nicely ready for my feet. I was impressed with his thoughtfulness, being four years old and all.



Can't wait for the what else this summer has in store for me. Especially a little person that's rumored to be coming to stay with us in July!

Grateful for their dad

The best thing I could have done for my children is to marry Mark. He is the greatest dad and he sure loves these boys' mom. Happy Father's Day, honey! These boys adore you. Here are a few of the fun things that Dallin and Adam love about their dad:

• Hearing his stories at bedtime. Dallin gets very specific about which kind of stories he wants to hear. Lately it has been some variation of spooky-Sonic-Chipmunk stories, or spooky-chipmunk-haunted house stories, or spooky-Sonic-haunted house-squid stories, or something like that.
• Playing monkey with him. Classic dad game: Dad acts like a crazy monkey. Boys scream and run from daddy.
• Star Wars Stratego. Ever played Stratego? It's in the chess/checkers category of games, with the goal to capture the opponent's flag. Unless you have the Star Wars version in which you try to capture the opponent's light saber. Dallin has been playing a lot of this game lately. He does really well for four years old. Adam will be on Dad's team until he gets bored--usually about three minutes into the game.

We love you Mark!

Fun things happen when Iris is in town

Our niece, Iris, is probably Dallin's favorite person in the world. For good reason too. She is sweet, caring, helpful, and mature enough that she can put up with Dallin's little quirks and they both get along great.

Iris was at our house for five days while my sister and her husband went to Las Vegas with some of his family. They live in El Paso so they dropped off Iris to stay with us halfway to Vegas.

It's always fun when Iris is here. For instance, simple things like this:

Turn into this:

And of course having a guest over makes good reason to go swimming, visit Tempe's Splash Playground a couple of times, go out for dinner, and get frozen yogurt.

Look at Adam go!
It's hard to resist when Iris asks if we can get frozen yogurt like we did the last time she was here. I mean, there are certain things that are worth making traditions of, and I sure want her to have good memories of coming to visit our family. Not that frozen yogurt is everything, but well, sometimes it kind of seems like it.We took the opportunity to let Iris in on one of our yearly traditions: buying flag T-shirts from Old Navy.

And in case after all this you still need more proof that magical things happen when Iris is around take a look at what happens when Iris spills her milk:

No set up. No kidding.

On a related note, I overheard Dallin singing a song of mourning for Iris while he was in the bathroom today. I didn't catch it all but it was slow and sad and repeated things like "I am so sad that Iris is gone" and "Why does she have to live in Texas?"

We love you Iris and we miss you already!